Since 2008, an independent look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me. Nothing is for sale, and this not a Profit and Loss report either. They're boring.

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Well, who knew? This Twitterage thing apparently works in two ways. Not only can you be followed, but you can also be a follower yourself. Jesus can also be an apostle. @markyiverson and @OnlineTrader pointed this out to me, and I am now open to suggestions as to who might be worth following. I'm quite demanding though, since I know I don't want anything horse-racing related, but beyond that, specifically what DO I want, I'm not quite sure. If there is a Twit suggesting winner after winner, that'll work.The Saturday football went reasonably well, with all three Value Under selections winners, but of the two XX Draw selections, just the one Under to sing about. Koln v Schalke '04 was a draw until the 72' when Schalke exploded with three late goals, while Paris St Germain scored early at Brest, and the game ended 0-1. Both the Unders and the Draw price shortened considerably on the German game, offering a sure profit to anyone choosing to trade out before going in-play, but unfortunately this wasn't my own strategy here. The Under selections tipped were Catania v Param (1-1), Lorient v Sochaux (1-1) and Toulouse v Caen (1-0) at 1.7, 1.71 and 1.72 respectively- nice sequence there for those who like that sort of thing.Mark J had one selection, Inverness Caledonian Thistle -0.5 v St Mirren at 2.2, but they could only draw. Football Elite had a winner yesterday with Hannover '96 beating Nuremberg at 2.25 while the Green Pullover's poor run in the draw department continued with four more losers. His pathetic Watson joke did, I am ashamed to admit, make me smile when I read it though. SJ left a comment the other day which arrived in my inbox, but was flagged as spam by blogger - I just released it along with a couple of others that had made their way there. For the record, I never delete comments, even if they are mean and spiteful and make me cry. SJ wrote:

It is nice to think that “my well written” (thanks) blog is the spark for yet another ‘full-time/part-time/hobby” debate. Nice, apart from most of it is well trodden ground. I think theory of mind eludes most of us to a degree when this topic comes up as it is difficult to put yourself in another person’s shoes. I find it hard to imagine what I would productively do with my spare time if I were to gamble for a living. Last week I watched films, youtube videos and started a blog. Fun at the time, but not sure it would be on a regular basis. Plus despite the two hours of travelling a day I enjoy the routine of going to work and the social aspects whilst I’m there. I also like the guaranteed income and company benefits plus all the cross-skilling I do. So for me it is a very easy decision, gambling is a profitable hobby that I do in some of my spare time. That suits me perfectly. I can also see how if my circumstances were different then I could have a different opinion and I like Mark’s reasoning and I like the sensible approach to the longevity of the profession he takes.ROI being a more useful indicator than unit profit (or anything) is another well read topic and I don’t suppose I have much to add to the pot. However I do have a couple of comments. The first is on Veitch and his 16% return, agreeing with the ‘’s around only, I think this is an exceptional return and that at his volume even a third of that would be highly impressive. Also as you allude to ROI on its own is a nice headline figure but without any qualification I find it is meaningless, perhaps comparable to looking just at goals for in football without referencing games played, goals conceded, relative position etc etc. Presented with a choice of either a system with a record of 5% ROI after 1000 bets at 1 bet a week or a system with a 20% ROI after 15 bets at a rate of 1 bet a day then based solely on that information I’d happily choose the 5% return. Of course there are various shades of gray in between too and taking into account things like average prices, drawdown and recovery periods and volatility can all help calculate the worthiness of an approach. Second comment I’ve left on a blog this evening that is as long as my last post so I’ll leave it there.

Nice of SJ to write my blog as well as his own! Yes, that 16% ROI claimed by Patrick Veitch is certainly high, suggesting as I wrote earlier that his edge is based on more than an analysis of factors available to all. Analysis of any kind seem to be noticeably absent in the 'strategies' of a couple of fellow bloggers. One opens his latest post with these lines:

Once again the demons are near the surface. I found myself scanning betfair @ 2.30 am this morning looking for ANYTHING to bet or trade on, I fucked away 70Euro on NBA basketball, what a muppet. I withdrew my bank and decided to start again. I limited my deposits to €450 per week as I know what's potentially round the corner.

A second blogger received a good comment which was this:

From the outside looking in, it appears that when you up stakes you are actually trying to sabotage everything - and that's the mindset of a gambler, or any addict. I think you need to go deeper than 'a traders mindset' and find out if this behaviour is repeated in other areas of your life and why.

Both these bloggers would appear to be unsuited to trading or betting. No one serious about trading profitably finds themselves 'scanning Betfair at 2:30am looking for ANYTHING to bet or trade on" and the second blogger says

i've taken some time to reflect deeply on the way i am and how i have been in the past, a constant theme would be my addictive personality which can be found to be responsible for quite a few things when i think about it.

Where's the discipline that is essential in betting / trading, not to mention other areas of life? And then we read this

I really enjoy pre race trading and its something im not too bad at although as i mentioned before chrtistmas the in-play trading was taking off nicely for me. So as the markets fluidity is rather poor at the moment im going to spend a little time opting out of the pre race markets all together (maybe ill bend the rules on saturdays) and just constantly apply the methods i have for in running as its far more difficult for the in running markets to be skewed by manipulation, something i feel this time of year thrives in the pre race markets. Also it should free up some time for me to watch the runner prior to the start, i have already tried this since my last post on thursday and friday evening meetings.... guess what, couple of the better days ive had over the past couple of weeks!

No mention of an edge, which in horse racing is almost impossible as I have written before, and it would seem that our friend is simply gambling at random, pre-race one minute ('not too bad at' - what does that mean - profitable, lose slowly?), in-play the next ('taking off nicely for me'). Gamblers are notorious for selective memory, and unless I am reading this all wrong, this seems to be the case here. Bending the rules - why have rules? There's the excuse for losses present too - 'markets skewed by manipulation'. What does that even mean? If you are confident about what price represents value, what any spoofers might try to do will be of academic interest to you only. If someone offers a bet that is value - take it! Or at least some of it. It could be Dietmar Hamann playing with some loose change.

2 comments:

As much as I like to read your blog and your rant against gamblers-who- call-themselves-traders, I find it disconcerting that you can’t grasp the difference between what you do (whether you call it sport trading of value betting and edging) and pre-race horse racing trading. Here i’m not talking about form analysis and punting, but of trading on a market with fluctuation of prices and quantities which have nothing to do with what is happening in the event, because it is the nature of prerace trading that nothing (well, very little) is happening. When you do that, you are not looking for value because you are not having an opinion about the qualities of a horse and its probability of winning the race. You don’t even have to know the name of the horses (or as someone has put it more prosaically, you don’t need to know the head from the arse of a horse). The edge only comes from the capacity to read the market and its evolution. You can back a horse at odds of 3.00 and lay it seconds later at 2.8 and, later (but always before the race and before anything has happened), lay the same horse at odds of 2.3 and back it at 2.5. There is no contradiction in backing the horse at 2.5 and laying it at 2.8 because “value” is not part of the analysis. You’re not making your trading decisions based on the probability of a horse to win or because you have “inside information”, but rather based on an evaluation of the market dynamic and its evolution. I’m not saying that it is easy, as most of those who try will fail, but it is very well possible to succeed in doing that.

But surely you already know all that? Don’t you? And that’s the main reproach I have to make about your blog. You seem to write those things about horse racing only to be pedantic (your recent comments on Caan Berry’s blog are examples of that in my opinion). You must know that there are several horse racing traders who are successful at it and even do it for a living. You must be aware of the numerous betfair softwares and the communities of pre-race and in-play horse racing traders hanging around their forums.

And talking of software, I recall that you don’t use any. Do yourself a favor, go get one and try trading NBA games on the ladder interface with automated edging calculation. I can’t see one good reason not to use one (and stubbornness is certainly not one of them).

Apart from that, I really like your blog. Keep up the good work.Alfred

About Me

I have had a life-long interest in sports and after studying Pure Mathematics with Statistics at secondary school, have been fascinated by odds and probability.
The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear! Only slightly daunted, I then went on a search for the Holy Grail, the secret to riches that I knew was out there somewhere. Finally in 2004 I stumbled across an article about Betting Exchanges and four years on I am able to make a steady profit. I am at that age where I can start thinking about retirement and anything I make from trading sports will bring that day forward.